Cult Movie Challenge 2017 | 46/52 | Steven Segal
It’s 5 AM near Trieste, Italy. Lieutenant Colonel Austin Travis leads a US Special Forces Counterterrorist Strike Team on a Chechen mafia safe house. Their objective is to recover a stolen Soviet nerve toxin called DZ-5. Travis runs in with a bowie knife, stabbing Chechen dudes in the neck. His team follows close behind. When the team reaches the demarcated location, they find the room empty. In case it wasn’t clear, the text comes on the screen to tell us that the team did not recover the DZ-5.
Three months later, Dr. David Grant, a consultant to US Army Intelligence, flies a Beechcraft C33 Debonair for flight training, landing at Fredericks Field in Maryland. He’s about to take off for his first solo flight when Gail drives up with a phone call. US authorities captured terrorist leader El Sayed Jaffa at his daughter’s wedding.
Ten days later, in London, a suicide bomber enters a Mariott and detonates himself. In Athens, Greece, a Boeing 747 with over 400 passengers takes off. Several men take that plane hostage, demanding El Sayed Jaffa’s release. Grant and Travis attend a Pentagon meeting on how to approach the situation. The team thinks they should accept the terrorists’s demands and wait until they land, but Grant doesn’t believe they should wait because they probably have DZ-5. So they’re going to have to do a mid-air insertion.
Travis’ team will lead the operation, and they pull Grant onto their team for some reason. Will they be able to save the day?
I love an action movie that treats you like a total idiot. We receive the most detailed information cards about the day, time, and location when it’s either not that relevant or so obvious that it’s humorous. I’m thinking of when the camera is over the Coliseum—the text says, “Athens, Greece.”
My dad watched so many action movies, including this one. I remember seeing this DVD cover. I always thought the blade going 45 degrees was a propeller, but it’s the tail of a modified Nighthawk. When we’d watch action films together, I would ask “why” questions, and he would say, “Because it’s a movie! Just enjoy it!” He would’ve lost it if he watched this one with me.
I love the mid-90s future tech—old Macs with low-res polygons, audio equipment with waveforms flapping around, and so on. If you’re into planes, this movie has several. I found a page about them on the Internet Movie Plane Database
The cast is stacked with memorable faces: Halle Berry, John Leguizamo, Oliver Platt, Joe Morton, Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples. This is the straightest I’ve ever seen BD Wong.
My favorite aspect of the script is how often people disagree with one another, yet it doesn’t escalate into a fight. That shit is so exhausting, and the movie is better for it.
My biggest complaint is the movie’s length. It’s decent with the action beats and offers a surprise or two along the way, but my eyes glazed over for large swaths of the movie. The second hour is better than the first.
I watched this movie in two parts. I’m glad I did — I was able to enjoy the latter half much more. This movie is still dumb as hell, but it’s pretty entertaining.